HMWL

HMWL Podcast 103 – NIBC [DJ Set, Trunkfunk, Berlin]

Fredrik Nyberg, better known as DJ NIBC or just NIBC kick-started his career back in mid-2000s launching his Trunkfunk label out of the heart of Göteborg and quickly licensing up some of his tracks to Ministry of Sound. Now NIBC resides in Berlin producing and releasing tracks at top pace and also hosting a monthly Trunkfunk night in Göteborg and soon even Stockholm.

HMWL: Hold on which you licensed to Ministry of Sound in 2011, springboarded your music career. Do you sometime feel the internal battle between producing really undergound beats and more “mainstream” sound to fit Ministry etc? Or is all really the same? After all good music is good music, right?

I’ve always had an open mind when it comes to the ”underground vs mainstream” discussion in electronic music. I think some of the most interesting stuff is always created somewhere on the border. When I first got in to producing and DJing in the 90s a lot of underground producers also made music for a more mainstream audience. It was a natural progression for DJs and producers like Roger Sanchez, Kevin Saunderson and Armand Van Helden to make both banging underground trax for the heads and at the same time cross over to reach a wider audience. Trunkfunk have always had a fruitful relationship with Ministry Of Sound already since 2007 when we licensed ’Every Word’. I’ve also recently had a couple of releases on their sublabel HK. At the end of the day: Good music is good music and it makes sense sometimes to share your music through different channels to get a wider reach.

As many other swedes in exile you moved from Gothenburg to Berlin, still you host your monthly Trunkfunk night at Yaki-Da Gothenburg. How is the Swedish, West coast dance music scene doing these days? What’s good, what could get better? In what direction is it moving?

The scene in Gothenburg is great at the moment! There are a lot of new parties, djs, producers and labels that are making a new scene. Of course people are not as spoiled as in Berlin but compared to the past it’s definitely moving forward and it feels great to be part as a contributor with our nights at Yaki-Da. We’re celebrating our 4 year anniversary with Moomin on the 27th of March and we have a lot of great things planned for the future in Gothenburg.

Your girlfriend Hanne Lempka does most of the artwork for Trunkfunk. Do you guys manage to not get on each other’s nerves here and there disagreeing on how things should look and sound?

She does all of the artwork for our club nights. For the label it’s always different designers (although she made my recent Vega artwork and also one for Ishivu in the past).

We actually never argue about how things should sound or look. But I always get loads of creative feedback from her in the studio on how I can improve things in my tracks and I’m super happy about all the designs she’s done for the club night over the last year. It’s great to have different creative spheres where you have a different perspective and really help each other develop. I’ve never had that before and it feels great!

Trunkfunk in 7 words?

Future sounds with an old school flavour.

What is the next step, anything more to it expect the label and club night?

We’re expanding our nights in Sweden this spring and hosting a couple of nights at Maskineriet in Stockholm. Really excited about that. Also something new in Berlin but that’s too early to mention yet. We also have a workshop concept we’ve been developing since last year that we soon will premiere. I was one of the lucky first Swedish participants in the RBMA 15 years ago in Dublin and since then I’ve always felt an urge to be part of something similar. I hosted 2 courses in Stockholm with Calle Dernulf at Södra Teatern called ”Södran DJ Academy” which was a great experience. And now we’re going to create a new platform for likeminded people to intract through Trunkfunk this year.

What’s in the pipeline production-wise for NIBC?

I’ve just released the Vega EP and have my next release ’Love Lesson’ ready for the 16th of March with remixes by Ian Pooley, Tuff City Kids(Lauer & Gerd Janson) and Hans Berg. After that I have a couple of new tracks and collabo releases that are almost finished. So it’s going to be a busy year!